Combining information from two or possibly several blocks of data is gaining increased attention and importance in several areas of science and industry. Typical examples can be found in chemistry, spectroscopy, metabolomics, genomics, systems biology and sensory science. Many methods and procedures have been proposed and used in practice. The area goes under different names: data integration, data fusion, multiblock analyses, multiset analyses and a few more. This book is an attempt to give an up-to-date treatment of the most used (...) and important methods within an important branch of the area; namely methods based on so-called components or latent variables. These methods have already obtained an enormous attention in for instance chemometrics, bioinformatics, machine learning and sensometrics and have proved to be important both for prediction and interpretation. The book is primarily a description of methodologies, but most of the methods will be illustrated by examples from the above-mentioned areas. The book is written such that both users of the methods as well as method developers will hopefully find sections of interest. In the end of the book there is a description of a software package developed particularly for the book. This package is freely available in R and covers many of the methods discussed. To distinguish the different type of methods from each other, the book is divided into five parts. Part I is introduction and preliminary concepts. Part II is the core of the book containing the main unsupervised and supervised methods. Part III deals with more complex structures and, finally, Part IV discusses alternative unsupervised and supervised methods. The book ends with Part V discussing the available software. Our recommendation for reading the book are as follows. A minimum read of the book would involve chapters 1, 2, 3, 5 and 7. Chapters 4, 6 and 8 are more specialized and chapters 9 and 10 contain methods we think are more advanced or less obvious to use. We feel privileged to have so many friendly colleagues who were willing to spend their time on helping us to improve the book by reading separate chapters. We would like to express our thanks to: Rasmus Bro, Margriet Hendriks, Ulf Indahl, Henk Kiers, Ingrid MaÌ⁽ge, Federico Marini, AÌ⁽smund Rinnan, Rosaria Romano, Lars Erik Solberg, Marieke Timmerman, Oliver Tomic, Johan Westerhuis and Barry Wise. Of course, the correctness of the final text is fully our responsibility! (shrink)

Numerous jurisdictions have recently raised the age of retirement or plan to do so. Pressure to extend people's working lives is due to population aging, which makes it harder to fund retirement through existing methods. Raising the retirement age can improve the ‘dependency ratio’ by increasing the fraction of the population that works (and pays taxes) relative to the fraction retired. This article gives sustained attention to connecting the case for retirement with one view about wellbeing, according to which (...) old age is subject to distinctive goods. The importance of being able to access these goods in old age favours an eventual exit from labour market participation that retirement provisions enable. This view is stronger than one that treats retirement as merely a safety net to enable people to stop work only when advanced aging makes it unreasonably burdensome. At the same time, the view likely does not justify status quo retirement ages, meaning that some increase to the retirement age might be defensible. The article also seeks to illuminate ways in which different aspects of population aging – in particular the distinction between dependency ratios and inequalities in longevity – bear differently on the wider debate about justice and retirement. (shrink)

Technological approaches are increasingly discussed as a solution for the provision of support in activities of daily living as well as in medical and nursing care for older people. The development and implementation of such assistive technologies for eldercare raise manifold ethical, legal, and social questions. The discussion of these questions is influenced by theoretical perspectives and approaches from medical and nursing ethics, especially the principlist framework of autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence, and justice. Tying in with previous criticism, the present contribution (...) is taking these principles as a starting point and as a frame of reference to be critically re-examined. It thus aims to outline how existing ethical frameworks need to be extended or reconsidered to capture the ethical issues posed by technological developments regarding care for older people. In a first step, we provide a brief overview of assistive technologies in eldercare according to their purposes and functions. In the next step, we discuss how the questions and problems raised by new technologies in eldercare call for an expansion, re-interpretation, and revision of the principlist framework. We underline that the inclusion of ethical perspectives from engineering and computer science as well as a closer consideration of socio-political dimensions and fundamental anthropological and praxeological questions are needed. (shrink)

This book is a philosophical discussion of moral, legal, and medical issues related to aging, dying, and death. One of its aims is to decide whether and when it might make sense to not resist or bring about the end of one's life. To answer this question it considers views about meaning in life and what makes life worth living. It also evaluates recent attempts to help the general public plan in advance for the end of life. It also (...) considers whether or not physician-assisted suicide is morally permissible and if it should be legalized. (shrink)

The mobility restrictions related to COVID-19 pandemic have resulted in the biggest disruption to individual mobilities in modern times. The crisis is clearly spatial in nature, and examining the geographical aspect is important in understanding the broad implications of the pandemic. The avalanche of mobile Big Data makes it possible to study the spatial effects of the crisis with spatiotemporal detail at the national and global scales. However, the current crisis also highlights serious limitations in the readiness to take the (...) advantage of mobile Big Data for social good, both within and beyond the interests of health sector. We propose two strategical pathways for the future use of mobile Big Data for societal impact assessment, addressing access to both raw mobile Big Data as well as aggregated data products. Both pathways require careful considerations of privacy issues, harmonized and transparent methodologies, and attention to the representativeness, reliability and continuity of data. The goal is to be better prepared to use mobile Big Data in future crises. (shrink)

Population aging and environmental pollution have become critical challenges to global sustainable development. Against this backdrop, we aim to explore the largely underexamined economic role of corporate pension plans in promoting corporate environmental sustainability, beyond their traditional function of mitigating demographic aging risks. Leveraging China's rapid expansion of the second pillar of its pension system, we empirically investigate the association between corporate pension plans and firms' environmental sustainability practices, based on 51,435 firm-year observations of Chinese A-share listed firms (...) over the period 2007–2024. Our results indicate that the implementation of annuity systems significantly enhances firms' green technology innovation. This finding remains robust across a battery of identification strategies, including instrumental variable estimation, Heckman two-stage models, propensity score matching, and placebo tests. Mechanism analyses suggest that annuity systems promote green technology innovation by improving the quality of human resources, alleviating financing constraints, and mitigating managerial myopia. Cross-sectional analyses further indicate that the effect is more pronounced as Chinese society transitions into the stage of deep aging, particularly in regions with higher levels of population aging, and among firms with greater levels of digitalization and corporate governance. Overall, our study integrates labor market dynamics with socio-ecological sustainability within the context of population aging, thereby providing novel insights into synergistic pathways for addressing demographic transitions and advancing sustainable development globally. (shrink)

John Davis (_New Methuselahs_: _The Ethics of Life_ _Extension_, The MIT Press, Cambridge, 2018) advances a novel ethical analysis of longevity science that employs a three-fold methodology of examining the impact of life extension technologies on three distinct groups: the “Haves”, the “Have-nots” and the “Will-nots”. In this essay, I critically examine the egalitarian analysis Davis deploys with respect to its ability to help us theorize about the moral significance of an applied gerontological intervention. Rather than focusing on futuristic scenarios (...) of radical life extension, I offer a rival egalitarian analysis that takes seriously (1) the health vulnerabilities of today’s aging populations, (2) the health inequalities of the “aging status quo” and, (3) the prospects for the fair diffusion of an aging intervention over the not-so-distant future. Despite my reservations about Davis’s focus on “life-extension” vs. increasing the human “healthspan”, I agree with his central conclusion that an aging intervention would be, on balance, a good thing and that we should fund such research aggressively. But, I make an even stronger case and conjecture that an intervention that slows down the rate of molecular and cellular decline from the inborn aging process will likely be one of the most important public health advancements of the twenty-first century. This is so because aging is the most prevalent risk factor for chronic disease, frailty and disability, and it is estimated that there will be over 2 billion persons age > 60 by the year 2050. (shrink)

BackgroundBurnout is a syndrome that results from stressors in the work environment that have not been successfully managed. The prevalence of burnout among schoolteachers was always controversial. COVID-19 pandemic added more stressors to teachers since they had to change their working styles in response to the pandemic lockdowns or curfews. In Saudi Arabia, the prevalence and determinants of burnout among school teachers were not measured by any other group during the COVID-19 pandemic stressors.MethodsA cross-sectional survey was conducted among 879 teachers (...) in the Jazan region, Saudi Arabia, using the Maslach Burnout Inventory, during April 2021. Multistage cluster random sampling was used.ResultsThe mean age of the participants was 41.4 years. Male teachers represented 52.6% of the participants while females represented 47.4%. Most teachers showed burnout symptoms. Consequences of burnout were observed, such as using psychotropic medications, absenteeism, lack of job satisfaction, and changing schools. Using the MBI scale, most teachers showed medium or high emotional exhaustion, low depersonalization, and low personal accomplishment.ConclusionMost teachers showed symptoms of burnout during the COVID-19 pandemic. Being an expert and ability to adapt to technology during the COVID-19 pandemic proved to effectively reduce burnout symptoms. Increasing incentives, early detection, and improving the work environment is recommended to diminish burnout consequences. (shrink)

The present study examines the bilingual aging lexicon by comparing word association networks across four age groups of Chinese–English bilingual adults. Adopting network analysis with breadth‐first search‐based sampling, results showed that in L1 (Chinese) networks, global connectivity increases from early to mid‐adulthood, accompanied by reduced local clustering and enhanced global efficiency; the network remains relatively stable through midlife, followed by declining efficiency and progressively pronounced modular structure in late adulthood. The L2 (English) networks mirror L1 developmental trends in early (...) and mid‐adulthood but with substantially larger shifts; throughout adulthood, L2 exhibits lower global and local connectivity and weaker modularity compared to L1. These findings reveal distinct developmental trajectories for L1 and L2 semantic networks in bilinguals, underscoring greater structural stability in the dominant language (L1) across adulthood relative to the nondominant language (L2). This L1–L2 asymmetry points to differential impacts of aging on bilingual lexical organization. Results are discussed in relation to compensatory mechanisms and enrichment accounts of cognitive aging. (shrink)

I introduce the phrase ‘Galenic Naturalism’ to describe the millennia-old doctrine that death can result either from a natural, that is, universal and necessary, process of deterioration (aging) or from particular and contingent causes, including diseases. While biologists now largely reject this model in aging research, it is still very influential in medical practice, especially when it comes to deciding what should be treated and what should not, among the various conditions of old age. In philosophy as well, (...) Galenic Naturalism still shapes debates about anti-aging medicine and its extremeversion, immortalism. Yet I show that in ethical and philosophical debates around rejuvenation and anti-aging treatments, there sometimes is a tendency to gloss over the biological details of what these interventions would do with the consequence of raising non-relevant questions. In the end, I plea for a clarification of the foundations of the science of aging, with much effect to be expected on medical practice as well as on philosophy. (shrink)

Background: Dignity is a multidimensional construct that includes perception, knowledge, and emotions related to competence or respect. Attitudes to aging are a comprehensive personal view of the experience of aging over the course of life, which can be influenced by various factors, such as the levels of health and self-sufficiency and social, psychological, or demographic factors. Aim: The purpose of this study was to explore the attitudes to aging of home-dwelling and inpatient older adults, and whether dignity (...) and other selected factors belong among the predictors influencing attitudes to aging in these two different groups of older adults. Research design: Cross-sectional study using a set of questionnaires: Patient Dignity Inventory, Attitudes to Aging Questionnaire, and Barthel Index. Pearson and Spearman correlation analyses and multivariable linear regression were used for statistical processing. Participants and research context: 233 inpatients and 237 home-dwelling older adults participated in the research in two regions of the Czech Republic. Ethical considerations: Institutional Review Board approval was received from the authors’ university. Findings: The inpatients had more negative attitudes to aging (M = 74.9±10.9; P <0.0001). The predictors of their attitudes to aging were gender and dignity. Women ( β = −2.969, P = 0.045) and inpatients with poor dignity ratings ( β = −0.332, P <0.0001) had more negative attitudes to aging. The predictors for home-dwelling older adults were education, living arrangement, and dignity. More negative attitudes to aging were found in older adults with lower levels of education ( β = 2.716, P = 0.007) who lived alone ( β = 2.163, P = 0.046) and rated their dignity as low ( β = −0.325, P <0.0001). Discussion and Conclusions: The results of this study add to the understanding that a sense of dignity is an important predictor of attitudes to aging for both home-dwelling older adults and inpatients. (shrink)

A great deal of progress has recently been made in characterizing the “mechanisms of aging.” A comparison with the mechanisms of development shows that the two sets of mechanisms are different; nevertheless, mechanisms of aging are conditioned by what happens during development. Aging and development also share some characteristics, such as a similar difficulty in attributing a precise temporal boundary to these processes. Other characteristics seem more specific to aging, such as the role of external (to (...) the organism) and stochastic events in its progression. In fact, both development and aging are historical processes with a mixture of stochastic events and deterministic processes, the ratio of the two being different in each process. Therefore, it is concluded that aging does not fit with a broad, lifelong conception of development. (shrink)

Prisons are debilitating and disorienting spaces. Temporal realities themselves are altered from those of the outside world. This paper builds upon a study of prison staff work with aging incarcerated persons in Canadian federal penitentiaries, wherein the prison environment itself contributes to accelerated aging and slow death. Simultaneously, temporal experiences in prison both slow and become cyclic, rhythmic. These multiple temporalities flow independent of the “outside” world, which, from the perspective of incarcerated persons, accelerates. To reconcile these multiple, (...) conflicting simultaneous temporalities, we turn to science fiction, specifically the works of Philip K. Dick, to build a conceptual world where such paradoxical temporalities coexist. A bricolage approach is adopted to interrogate these temporalities, and their effects on incarcerated persons, including debilitation and institutionalization, and the production of persons often incapable of transitioning back to the “real” world outside of prison. Proposals for both nursing practice and future research possibilities are provided. (shrink)

This article examines a very specific way in which self-determination of older individuals is being undermined in the context of digitalization that is often overlooked in the philosophical debate. After a few brief remarks on the role of ethics in the debate about digitalization and the connection between aging and digitalization, a contextual definition of self-determination and one of its preconditions – namely, authenticity – is provided. In the course of examining the definition and role authenticity in the debate, (...) it is emphasized that, contrary to what is commonly suggested in the literature on digitalization, self-determination cannot only be expressed by “pulling the plug” and refusing to use technology. The aim is to demonstrate that, under certain conditions, the non-use of technology by older individuals can also be seen as the result of limited self-determination and is therefore problematic. To prevent this, greater social awareness is needed regarding the problems resulting from the spread of negative prejudices and narratives of old age. (shrink)

This volume brings together chapters about aging in many non-Western cultures, from Africa and Asia to South America, from American Indians to Australian and Hawaii Aboriginals. It also includes articles on other issues of aging, such as falling, dementia, and elder abuse. It was thought that in Africa or Asia, elders were revered and taken care of. This certainly used to be the case. But the Western way has moved into these places, and we now find that elders (...) are often left on their own or in institutions, as younger people have migrated to other cities and even countries. Grandparents often find themselves being parents to their grandchildren, a far cry from the kind of life they believed they would have as they aged. This book will explore all these issues and will be of use to students and researchers in this relatively new field. (shrink)

Unter dem Begriff ›Anti-Aging‹ wird seit etwa drei Jahrzehnten eine wachsende Anzahl medizinischer wie außermedizinischer Präparate bzw. Verfahren konzipiert, entwickelt und eingesetzt, die allgemein der Bekämpfung des Alterns dienen sollen. Die so genannte Anti-Aging-Medizin will in den Alterungsprozess des menschlichen Körpers eingreifen, um ihn zu verlangsamen, aufzuhalten oder rückgängig zu machen. Dabei variieren die konkreten Angriffspunkte, Vorgehensweisen und Zielsetzungen der einzelnen Ansätze durchaus beträchtlich.

In this paper I argue that the contemporary pathologizing of old age is directly tied to the notion of uselessness, understood entropically as that which cannot contribute energy for useful work. The elderly are configured as socially useless and thus threaten the health of the body politic. As a result, they are marginalized, ignored, and treated as waste to be jettisoned from the system. Because understanding bodies as machines able or unable to perform work accords with the second law of (...) thermodynamics, the first half of this paper discusses entropy as both scientific law and philosophical concept. The second section explores the lived experience of aging and the pathologized position of social uselessness through Simone Beauvoir’s analysis of old age. As she herself ages, the place of senescence comes to play a more pronounced role in her philosophical inquiry. Writing about the lived experience of aging adds a vital dimension to the scientific and philosophical perspectives, insofar as it foregrounds the various ways that entropy is felt: slowing, dissipating, and ultimately dying. While these should be viewed as part of the normal life cycle, they become markers of abjection which are judged harshly against the standard of social utility. (shrink)

This article advances a critical phenomenology of the meaning of aging embodiment. Its broad aim is to profoundly challenge an idealized view of aging as foremost and fundamentally a natural or normative procession of “ready-made” stages pre-set “in” time (i.e., infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and “old age”) or pre-given units of time that unfurl along a timeline (i.e., chronological age), from past to present to future. Combining, defending, and adapting resources from Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception with a reading (...) of the concept of institution (Stiftung) via the phenomenon of puberty in Institution and Passivity: Course Notes from the Collège de France (1954-1955) as well as insights from critical gerontology, I argue that the phenomenon of aging embodiment demands to be understood in terms of transitions, that is, as an intensive reorientation in relationality, sociality, and the style in which one has a past rather than as changes along a timeline. (shrink)

"Abstract: This book is a philosophical discussion of moral, legal, and medical issues related to aging, dying, and death. It considers different views about whether and why death is bad for the person who dies, and whether these views bear on why it would be bad if there were no more persons at all. The book looks at how the general public is being asked to think about end of life issues, as well, by examining some questionnaires and conversation (...) guides that have been developed for their use. It also considers views about the process of dying and whether it might make sense to not resist death, or even to bring about the end of one's life, given certain views about meaning in life and what things it is worth living on to get and do. Some hold that it is not only serious illness but ordinary aging that may give rise to some of these questions and the book considers various ways in which aging and the distribution of goods and bads in a life could occur. Physician assisted suicide would be one way to end one's life and the book examines arguments about its moral permissibility and whether or not it should be legalized as a matter of public policy. This discussion draws on capital punishment debates concerning State action and also on methods of balancing costs and benefits. The book examines the views of such prominent philosophers, medical doctors, and legal theorists as Shelly Kagan, Susan Wolf, Atul Gawande, Ezekiel Emanuel, Cass Sunstein, and Neil Gorsuch, among others. ". (shrink)

Amid intensifying calls for an international convention on the rights of older persons, it is timely and important to examine the different narratives of aging that are informing and shaping debates on the human rights of older persons and to explore their implications. The article examines the dominant and competing narratives of aging emerging from public policy and gerontological studies, most notably, aging as a crisis or burden; aging as pathology; conceptions of successful, productive or active (...) aging; and finally, aging and vulnerability. The implications of each of these narratives are analysed. The article then explores the extent to which these different narratives are taken up or challenged in advocacy for an international convention on the rights of older persons. The aim of the discussion is to make explicit and interrogate the narratives of aging which advocacy for a new convention on the rights of older persons may be perpetuating or challenging. (shrink)

To solve a series of pension problems caused by aging, based on the emotional recognition of the Internet of Things, the control method and system research of smart homes are proposed. This article makes a detailed analysis and research on the necessity, feasibility, and how to realize speech emotion recognition technology in smart families, introduces the definition and classification of emotion, and puts forward five main emotions to be recognized in speech emotion recognition based on smart family environment. Then, (...) based on this, it analyses the acquisition methods of emotional speech data. On this premise, this article discusses and analyses the related problems of voice data acquisition in smart homes, such as the voice characteristics and acquisition methods, puts forward three rules for voice text design, and determines the relatively suitable hybrid recording acquisition method applied in a smart home environment. At the same time, the design and establishment process of intelligent family emotional speech database is described in detail. The related problems of feature extraction in speech emotion recognition are studied. Starting from the definition of feature extraction, this article expounds on the necessity of feature extraction in the process of recognition and analyses the characteristics of the speech signals. For the specific environment of the smart family, the speech signal required to be processed needs to be close to the auditory characteristics of the human ears, and the speech signal contains enough information. Finally, the Mel frequency cepstrum coefficient is selected as the feature parameter applied in this article, and the extraction process of MFCC is introduced in detail. (shrink)

_Oedipus at Colonus_ apparently shows the aging Oedipus finding a fulfilling ending to his life. The play characterizes that fulfillment in terms of a religious perspective few would now accept. This chapter attempts to construct a framework in which to appreciate Sophocles’s last play as a profound _human_ drama (as is _Oedipus Tyrannus_). The serenity Oedipus achieves is the product of a struggle. As the episodes of the drama, particularly the encounters with Creon and Polynices, reveal, the aging (...) hero retains many of the traits of his younger self, and his equilibrium is consequently precarious. The predicament is central to our experience as we age. Locating the play in relation to other literary works—the _New Testament_ and the poetry of Yeats, Dylan Thomas, and T. S. Eliot—the chapter sees the closing life in terms of a struggle for calm self-acceptance. (shrink)

Simone de Beauvoir’s discussion of the place of aging and menopause in The Second Sex offers only brief glimmers of older women’s agency tucked in among descriptions of the female elderly frantically, but futilely, searching for meaningful roles. Aging is particularly difficult to think through from an existentialist perspective that emphasizes agency and control over one’s world. Beauvoir’s later work in The Coming of Age offers more carefully detailed perspective for considering aging and the meaning of the (...) sacrifice of life’s projects. The difficulty of maintaining a sense of identity and meaning increases as agency becomes limited and the weight of one’s past life and decisions becomes greater. Moving from The Second Sex to The Coming of Age in dialogue with Beauvoir clarifies when loss of control and agency destroys life’s value, but also when a deliberate choice to sacrifice agency may be meaningful and value-laden. (shrink)

Over the last decades, educational programs involving age simulation suits emerged with the ambition to further the understanding of age-related loss experiences, enhance empathy and reduce negative attitudes toward older adults in healthcare settings and in younger age groups at large. However, the impact of such “instant aging” interventions on individuals’ personal views on aging have not been studied yet. The aim of the current study is to address possible effects of ASS interventions on multiple outcomes related to (...) views on aging, i.e., aging-related cognitions, awareness of age-related change and age stereotypes. Moreover, we explore effects on broader constructs with relevance to aging, i.e., perceived obsolescence, risk perceptions, as well as desired support through technology. In a within-subjects design, N = 40 participants went through a series of established geriatric assessments with and without an ASS. Views on aging constructs were assessed in standardized questionnaires before and after the ASS intervention. Changes in aging-related cognitions were observed, with more negative expectations regarding social integration and continuous development after wearing the ASS. AARC and age stereotypes did not change from pre- to post-assessment, but participants reported an increased susceptibility to age-associated impairments and stronger feelings of obsolescence. Those participants who exhibited higher difficulties in geriatric assessments while wearing the suit reported higher openness to be supported by intelligent assistive devices or robots afterwards. We conclude that ASS interventions should only be combined with education on losses and gains during the aging process to prevent negative effects on individual views on aging. On the other hand, potentials regarding technology acceptance and formation of intentions to engage in prevention and health behaviors among middle-aged to young-old adults are discussed. (shrink)

As Americans live longer, and as the "baby boom" generation approaches retirement, the social, political, and legal needs of older citizens pose a challenge to our institutions. One response has been the rise of "elder law." In this groundbreaking reader, Lawrence A. Frolik gathers together seminal essays on the intersection of law and issues affecting older Americans. The essays take into account not only a variety of professional perspectives but also the perspectives of individual older people, caregivers, and family members. (...) After an introduction covering the nature of elder law, social attitudes toward the elderly, aging and ethnicity, and generational justice, the book includes sections on work, income, wealth; housing, mental capacity, health-care decision making; long-term care, health-care finance, family and social issues; and abuse, neglect, victimization, and elderly criminals. It concludes with essays on legal representation and ethical issues. The essays have been edited to make them easily accessible to students and the general reader, and Professor Frolik has supplied introductions to the sections, as well as summaries of issues for which essays could not be included. Both comprehensive and engaging, Aging and the Law brings together essays by lawyers, social workers, health-care professionals, and policy-makers, as well as selected case law and congressional hearings. Author note: Lawrence A. Frolik is Professor, University of Pittsburgh School of Law. (shrink)

Causal complexities involved in biological phenomena often generate ambiguous experimental results that may create epistemic niches for new approaches and interpretations. The exploration for new approaches may foment momentum of larger epistemological shifts, and thereby introduce the possibilities of adopting new technologies. This paper describes British molecular biologist Robin Holliday’s cell aging research from 1963 to the 1980s that transformed from simple hypothesis testing to working on various alternative and integrative approaches designed to deal with complex data. In the (...) 1960s, hoping to use biochemical investigations of cells to settle a debate about whether DNA mutations or protein errors caused aging, Holliday carried out a series of experiments with fruit flies, fungi, and human fibroblast cells. The results seemed to demonstrate that cytoplasmic protein errors caused cell aging. However, other scientists obtained contradictory results and raised issues about potential flaws in Holliday’s experiments. In the 1970s, working as the director of the Genetics Division of the National Institute for Medical Research in Mill Hill, United Kingdom, Holliday relied on available talents of his associates, including computational expertise, to explore alternative hypotheses and approaches. By the early 1980s, they had worked out an epigenetic explanation and had established integrative, evolutionary models of cell aging that incorporated both DNA mutations and protein errors as critical factors. By delineating Holliday’s research path from simply testing hypotheses to integrating multiple factors involved in aging, this paper offers an account of the difficulties in targeting molecular cause in cell aging around the 1970s, whose failures nevertheless opened up an epistemic niche for integration. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on documenting the changes in life expectancy and human lifespan and reviewing current understandings of demographic and epidemiological transitions. It allows assumption of shared understandings of the meaning of human aging and old age. A key policy indicator of changes in health and life expectancy is the concept of healthy active life expectancy and associated concept of disability‐free life expectancy. From a social gerontological perspective, aging is a concept that is less contested than the idea (...) of old age. The biomedicalization of aging has been a major influence across social spaces. Vincent has described four categories of anti‐aging medicine: symptom alleviation; life expectancy extension; lifespan extension; and abolition. The development of anti‐aging technology, science, and practice challenges us to think about the enhancement of human aging and the future of later life. Attitudes to aging remain essentially negative with little evidence to suggest that institutionalized ageism will disappear. (shrink)

Eye-tracking is increasingly studied as a cognitive and biological marker for the early signs of neuropsychological and psychiatric disorders. However, in order to make further progress, a more comprehensive understanding of the age-related effects on eye-tracking is essential. The antisaccade task requires participants to make saccadic eye movements away from a prepotent stimulus. Speculation on the cause of the observed age-related differences in the antisaccade task largely centers around two sources of cognitive dysfunction: inhibitory control (IC) and working memory (WM). (...) The IC account views cognitive slowing and task errors as a direct result of the decline of inhibitory cognitive mechanisms. An alternative theory considers that a deterioration of WM is the cause of these age-related effects on behavior. The current study assessed IC and WM processes underpinning saccadic eye movements in young and older participants. This was achieved with three experimental conditions that systematically varied the extent to which WM and IC were taxed in the antisaccade task: a memory-guided task was used to explore the effect of increasing the WM load; a Go/No-Go task was used to explore the effect of increasing the inhibitory load; a ‘standard’ antisaccade task retained the standard WM and inhibitory loads. Saccadic eye movements were also examined in a control condition: the standard prosaccade task where the load of WM and IC were minimal or absent. Saccade latencies, error rates and the spatial accuracy of saccades of older participants were compared to the same measures in healthy young controls across the conditions. The results revealed that aging is associated with changes in both IC and WM. Increasing the inhibitory load was associated with increased reaction times in the older group, while the increased WM load and the inhibitory load contributed to an increase in the antisaccade errors. These results reveal that aging is associated with changes in both IC and WM. (shrink)

Durch Fortschritte in der modernen Reproduktionsmedizin ist es Frauen heute möglich, auch nach der Menopause mit eigenen Eizellen schwanger zu werden. Damit wird die Fortpflanzung im homologen System auch im Alter zu einer realistischen Option. Gegen derartige späte Schwangerschaften gibt es vielfältige Argumente, die vor allem auf mögliche Schädigungen aufgrund des hohen Alters der Mutter verweisen. Maßnahmen der Anti-Aging-Medizin zum Erhalt bzw. zur Verbesserung der kognitiven und physischen Leistungsfähigkeit im fortgeschrittenen Alter könnten diese Einwände gegen den Einsatz von Reproduktionstechniken (...) nach der Menopause entkräften. Der Beitrag geht der Frage nach, wie erstrebenswert postmenopausale Schwangerschaften unter diesen Voraussetzungen eigentlich sind. Es wird die These vertreten, dass eine Schadensargumentation für eine ethische Bewertung allein nicht ausreichend ist, sondern auch Überlegungen zu Status und Authentizität des Kinderwunsches, zum Selbstverständnis der Medizin, zur Autonomie der Betroffenen sowie zur Natürlichkeit der Lebensführung berücksichtigt werden müssen. Darüber hinaus zeigt sich, wie Entwicklungen in zwei spezifischen Anwendungsbereichen (Anti-Aging- und Reproduktionsmedizin) in einer gemeinsamen Betrachtung zusammengeführt und mit Gewinn für allgemeinere medizinethische Überlegungen bewertet werden können. (shrink)

A timeless resource that probes Jewish texts, spirituality, and observance provides a unique approach to caring for the aging and elderly, helping today's ...